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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Grant Shapps' Tory chairmanship is already a car crash

Grant Shapps' Conservative colleagues must look back fondly on Baroness Warsi as a safe pair of hands.

I blogged the other day about his many, er, misfortunes involving the internet - an area in which he likes to think of himself as something of an expert. Today came news of what look likes a major blunder he made while still a housing minister.

In late 2011 former housing minister Grant Shapps slammed the contentious Pathfinder housing market renewal initiative - a £2.2 billion programme which once complete would have seen around 400,000 mainly Victorian homes and local landmarks in the North West flattened - as an ‘abject failure’.

He subsequently unveiled a £35.5 million cash pot of capital grants which was to be shared between the 13 authorities, funding renovation work and assisting families ‘trapped in half-empty ghost streets’.

However a Freedom of Information bid by SAVE revealed that the money was being channelled towards further demolitions and yesterday the organisation was granted leave by Mrs Justice Lang to bring full judicial review proceedings against the government.